This morning, we mused about the difficult roster decisions imminently facing the Cubs, one of which was what to do when Chris Coghlan (rib cage injury) was ready to return from the DL. There weren’t many great options for clearing space, but one of them was optioning lefty infielder Tommy La Stella to AAA Iowa … and that’s what the Cubs have done.
It’s probably going to be ill-received by some folks, but these are the tough choices you have to make when trying to keep everyone in the organization, but also field the best possible roster. La Stella was one of the few guys with options who could realistically be sent down.
La Stella is hitting a nice .295/.388/.457 on the year, and a solid .308/.419/.346 in July. Coghlan, meanwhile, has terrible numbers on the year (as we all know), and is at .194/.356/.306 in his brief time with the Cubs this year. But obviously Coghlan wrecked righties for the Cubs in 2014 and 2015, and that’s the guy the Cubs hope he can be for them in left field right now.
The good news for La Stella is that the big league roster will expand to include the full 40-man in just over a month, so, at the longest, he’ll be in Iowa for only a little while. He’ll be back.
And, depending on how the Trade Deadline sorts out, he could always be back much sooner than that.[adinserter block=”1″]